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med_cat: (woman reading)
med_cat: (woman reading)

"Pineapples in champagne"

med_cat: (woman reading)

Игорь Северянин - стихи

Увертюра

Ананасы в шампанском! Ананасы в шампанском!
Удивительно вкусно, искристо и остро!
Весь я в чем-то норвежском! Весь я в чем-то испанском!
Вдохновляюсь порывно! И берусь за перо!


Стрекот аэропланов! Беги автомобилей!
Ветропросвист экспрессов! Крылолёт буеров!
Кто-то здесь зацелован! Там кого-то побили!
Ананасы в шампанском - это пульс вечеров!

В группе девушек нервных, в остром обществе дамском
Я трагедию жизни претворю в грезофарс...
Ананасы в шампанском! Ананасы в шампанском!
Из Москвы - в Нагасаки! Из Нью-Йорка - на Марс!


A poem by Igor Severyanin, popular in the 1910s, in Russia:

An overture

Pineapples in champagne! Pineapples in champagne!
Amazingly delicious, sparkling and spicy!
I'm all in something Norwegian! I'm all in something Spanish!
I am inspired in bursts! And I take up my quill!


The buzzing of the airplanes! The speeding of the automobiles!
The windy-whistling of the express trains! The wing-flying of sailboats!
Someone is kissed breathless here! Over there, someone got beaten up!
Pineapples in champagne--they are the pulse of the evenings!

In a group of nervous young women, in the spicy society of ladies
I shall transform the tragedy of life into a dream-farce...
Pineapples in champagne! Pineapples in champagne!
From Moscow--to Nagasaki! From New York--to Mars!



~~~

В эмиграции Дон-Аминадо пишет желчный ответ тем, кто никак не может забыть прежнюю роскошь жизни:

Не старайся постигнуть. Не отгадывай мысли.
Мысль витает в пространствах, но не может осесть.
Ананасы в шампанском окончательно скисли,
И в таком состоянии их немыслимо есть.


Надо взять и откинуть, и отбросить желанья,
И понять неизбежность и событий и лет.
Ибо именно горьки ананасы изгнанья,
Когда есть ананасы, а шампанского нет.

Что ж из этой поэмы, господа, вытекает?
Ананас уже выжат, а идея проста:
Из шампанского в лужу – это в жизни бывает,
А из лужи обратно – парадокс и мечта!..


In the 1930s, having emigrated to France, a poet who took the pen name Don-Aminado, writes an acrimonious response to those who cannot forget the bygone luxuries:

Do not try to comprehend. Do not try to read thoughts.
Thought flutters in space but cannot settle down.
Pineapples in champagne have fermented quite fully,
And in such a state, they are not fit to be eaten.


One must take and discard, and toss aside the desires,
And to understand the inevitability both of events and of the passing years.
Because it is the pineapples of banishment that are bitter,
When one has pineapples, but not champagne.

What then follows from this poem, gentlemen?
The pineapple is already squeezed dry, but the main concept is a simple one:
From champagne into the puddle--that does happen in life,
But from the puddle back up--that's a paradox and a dream!

Comments

Apr. 19th, 2017 04:47 am (UTC)
Thank you; these are both interesting - I like the first one best.
med_cat: (cat and books)
Apr. 20th, 2017 12:22 am (UTC)
I rather like them both :) I only regret that I cannot do them full justice, esp. the first one, but I think you'd said you can read a bit of Russian, so I think you can appreciate the neologisms and how the poem sounds.

I wish LJ hadn't gotten rid of voice posts, I would recite the first one for a voice post.
Apr. 26th, 2017 09:33 pm (UTC)
I would have liked to hear your recitation. I do not read Russian well enough to do any poem justice - I know a handful of words, and can slowly sound out Cyrillic like a kindergarten child.
med_cat: (Default)
Apr. 28th, 2017 10:53 am (UTC)
I'll see if I can manage to make and upload an audio recording, later next week! I'll let you know :)
med_cat: (cat and books)
May. 19th, 2017 12:32 am (UTC)
Well, I'd made the audio recording, but it's not in the format that can be uploaded to LJ...I'll see what I can do to convert it to one of the allowed formats in the next week or two, and shall let you know :)